Pop Quiz: Tickets Please

I have a secret weapon and it is called an exit ticket. If you are not familiar with this it is a small piece of paper or an index card and as a student is leaving they have to hand it to you. What is on the paper? Well it can be a bunch of different things. At the end of the lesson you can have your students answer a question, or write down what the lesson was about. You can have them ask questions about what they are confused or questions about where their interest is in relation to the topic, but my favorite use is as a lab inventory check list.

I teach a lab based class and materials are my bread and butter. When a class arrives they need to have the correct materials and when they leave the materials still need to be there and ready for my next class. Three minutes between classes is not enough time to check 14 stations individually, and for some reason in the past my students did not think I knew who used the equipment last and they would leave it in various stages of disarray. They thought they were anonymous and if they broke the ruler who would know? So instead of passive aggressively making sure that the broken ruler was the only ruler that group got to use I started to use exit tickets. Each lab station has a packet of enough lab inventory/exit tickets for the day. At the beginning of the lab they check to make sure they have everything, at the end of class they check to make sure they have returned everything, and before the group can leave they need to turn the ticket in. For most of my students this is all I need to make sure my equipment is kept in good condition.

So my question for you today is: Have you ever used exit tickets? What was your experience with them good and bad?

The Pop Quiz is a question posed to you, the Scholars of Doubt. Look for it on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in the afternoon (ET)